Business banking platforms can support a range of financial operations for financial institutions’ business clients. They fundamentally enable businesses to manage balances and move money. But the scope and sophistication of features, which may range from fundamental account management and payments tools to sophisticated treasury functions, can differ dramatically by platform and target market. The larger and more complex the target customer, the more advanced the tools:

• Business digital banking: Offers small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) access to balances, transactions, transfers, bill pay, and remote deposit. Typically, includes ACH/wire initiation and positive pay, mobile access, and basic user entitlements.
  
  
• Cash management: Enhancements to business digital banking for mid-sized businesses, with features like accounts payable and receivable optimization, more sophisticated fraud tools, cash flow visibility, and forecasting. Includes role-based user controls.
  
  
• Treasury management: Features and workflows that extend business digital banking and cash management to support complex operations for large businesses. Includes liquidity management, payment operations, FX tracking, compliance management, and ERP integration.
  
  
• Treasury workstations: Standalone platforms for large enterprises and multinationals to manage their treasuries. They provide global cash visibility, advanced forecasting and compliance tools, and tight integration with financial services providers and banking, ERP, and trading systems.
  
  

What’s going on in business banking platforms

Many business digital banking platforms have grown to integrate more or more advanced cash management and treasury features and sell to financial institutions with larger, more sophisticated commercial clients. Some treasury management features have trickled down to solutions for smaller commercial clients, while treasury management workstations remain purpose-built products that are exclusive to corporate banking.

Below are four key trends and considerations for banks and credit unions, incorporating current developments in the business banking platform sector, keeping in mind different types of solutions:

• Enhanced UX: Legacy business platforms that consist of digital banking and cash management features are being superseded by more tightly integrated banking experiences with a broad choice of modules and a modern interface. Mobile is becoming a bigger part of business digital banking.
  
  
• Composable architecture: Platforms enable modern out-of-the-box APIs that encourage platform customization and custom development, allowing banks and sophisticated customers to mix and match capabilities instead of relying on bundles.
  
  
• Richer features: Business banking platforms at different levels are adding functionality historically reserved for more sophisticated software as small business banking adds deeper cash management functionality and business banking with cash management adds some treasury management features.
  
  
• Customer-centricity: Particularly in the small business space, single-login experiences and unified digital banking platforms enable a customer’s direct access to all products, accounts, and features they would have access to as customer of any business unit.
  
  

Business banking platform vendor snapshot

The business banking platform space is complex and, while features may overlap, solutions are designed for specific customer segments and the types of financial institutions that serve those segments. A bank or credit union’s choice of business banking platform will depend on its business and functional requirements.

Here’s a snapshot of business banking platforms. The list is representative: